RE: THE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CONTROVERSY - PART 1: THE EFFECT OF DETERRENCE
Here's my 2 cents on the death penalty. The biggest flaw with capital punishment in the modern era is the lack of exhibition. Back in the days when capital punishment was effective, it was effective because it was on public display. If you got convicted of a crime and sentenced to death, it took place at a public setting, the date and time of which was announced. If that applied to capital punishment, or any punishment for that matter, in the current era, it would serve the purpose of deterrence, absolutely, except for the hardest of criminals.
On another note, I fail to see how you can state that capital punishment is not a rational, logic based method of punishment or prevention..."I slowly came to the conclusion that capital punishment was never really a rational, logic-based method to punish and prevent crime"...rational thought dictates, as you stipulated, an eye for an eye mentality. Logically, death is a very effective method of punishment and prevention, death itself is punishment and it definitely prevents the person from committing another crime. It is absolutely impossible to retrain the brain of a hardened criminal, they either become more violent, better equipped to remain off the radar for future crimes, or they eventually die; those are the only realistic outcomes for felony criminals.
Capital punishment today gets way more publicity than ever before. With the internet today you can learn all about people who have been executed and know the dates on which people on death row are planned to be executed. Our sharing of news and information today is more than ever before in human history. If its the graphic details you are refering to, the main stream media may not show it, but they are really not that hard to find on the internet.
Regarding the "eye for an eye" mentality, that satisfies the human desire for revenge and not the need for rational thought. And yes killing someone may prevent that particular individual from committing murder again...but so does life without parole.
Life without parole only prevents the person from committing murder in the free society...they are still capable of committing murder inside the walls of the prison, and in some cases where gang leaders are involved, they can still command executions outside the walls of prison...so, while life without parole might look pretty on paper, it is an ineffective and inefficient method of addressing the problem.
Good point. Like the commerce clause the "cruel and unusual" thing has been beat to death. Punishment SHOULD be uncomfortable. Right now prison life is better than being homeless....or poor, elderly and out of work.
The thing about the death penalty is NOT deterrence . It more like "people who would do what you did don't deserve to exist, so therefore we're eliminating you. "
If there's any deterrence effect that's just a bonus.
If we accept the fact that punishment is the best method to potentially prevent someone from breaking the law again, then you are right, it should be uncomfortable - otherwise the brain won't perceive it as a 'punishment'.
That's a moral statement. Moral values vary enormously from individual to individual. You may believe that people who kill deserve to be 'eliminated'. But someone else might believe that people who steal deserve the same. So where do we find a common ground? I will talk about the morality of capital punishment on my next article.